Powers of Attorney, Elder Justice, Help Hiring Helpers, and No More Minnesota Nice

New Report on Powers of Attorney (POAs)

On Thursday, AARP’s Public Policy Institute released Power of Attorney Abuse: What States Can Do About It. Written by Lori Stiegel and Ellen Klem of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging, the 89-page document compares state laws on POAs and highlights measures that offer special protections against abuse, which include:

Clear statements of agents’ duties to act in good faith, within the scope of their authority, and according to principals’ expectations or best interests; and to follow principals’ estate plans, keep careful records, and cooperate with health care proxies.

Special language used to signal “hot powers,” particularly risky or questionable actions like changing beneficiaries.

Provisions permitting third parties to refuse to honor POAs when there's good reason to believe they’re being used to commit abuse and requiring the parties to report to APS.

Requiring those that have used POAs to misappropriate property or assets to pay it back.

Imposing sanctions for those who refuse to accept legitimate POAs.

In a USA Today article about the report, Naomi Karp, strategic policy adviser for the AARP Public Policy Institute, offered the following advice to anyone who's considering executing a POA:

Don't give anyone, even a child or spouse, POA unless you thoroughly trust that person with your finances.

Consider requiring the person who has POA to periodically report to a third party, such as your lawyer or another family member.

Make sure other family members know who has your POA so they can be on the lookout for misconduct.

The report also describes strategies for advocates who want to improve their states' POA laws. Copies are available at Power of Attorney Abuse: What States Can Do About It.

Give a Shout to the New Administration
Marie-Therese (MT) Connolly, Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (and former Coordinator of DOJ’s Elder Justice and Nursing Home Initiative) is circulating a proposal urging the new Administration to appoint high-level special advisors on elder justice at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to help set priorities and work with Congress and stakeholders around 3 priorities:

Improve research, evaluation, and data collection;

Enhance interventions and responses; and

Increase public awareness

Questions can be directed to MT at marie.connolly@wilsoncenter.org

New Web Site to Help Hire In-home Helpers
Safe Help in Your Home is a new Web site created by Lynn Loar and Jane Tamagna to guide people through the process of screening, hiring, and managing in-home aides. The content is slated for inclusion in their forthcoming book And You Thought Talking to Your Parents About Sex Was Hard—Finding Out What Your Parents Want toward the End of Their Lives. Lynn Loar is a licensed clinical social worker with expertise in abuse and neglect across the lifespan and Jane Tamagna is a social issues editor who has worked for the Bureau of National Affairs and is on the faculty of American University's School of Public Affairs.

The site is for people who are thinking of hiring in-home help for themselves, relatives, or friends; for care providers who want to show clients that they’re capable, trustworthy and responsible; and for agencies that want to provide capable, trustworthy, and responsible aides to clients.

What’s unique about Loar's and Tamagna’s tools, which include comprehensive checklists, are that they go beyond the standard steps (e.g. references, criminal background checks, etc.) to address such common-sense yet critical concerns as matching clients' and caregivers' personality types to avoid conflict. They also advise employers to check child and sex abuser registries and ask potential employees for copies of credit histories and DMV files. Their work draws from their experiences in the field of child abuse prevention, which is significantly ahead of ours in this arena, and they respond (justifiably, if not too gently) to common excuses and justifications they’ve heard from our ranks for why we don’t do more (“It’s too expensive,” “Aren’t we exposing ourselves to more liability by digging deeply? etc.).
Visit the site at Safe Help in Your Home. For more on elder abuse by paid caregivers, see Abuse by Paid Caregivers.

No More “Minnesota Nice"
As a native Minnesotan, I got a kick out of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s anti-scam campaign, “No More Minnesota Nice,” which warns Minnesotans about lottery and sweepstakes scams. I’d assumed that the point of the campaign was to urge us Minnesotans to eschew our notorious niceness and hang up on fraudsters as quickly as possible or tell them where to go. Which makes sense since criminal telemarketers know that the longer they can keep someone on the phone, the more likely they’ll be able to complete a scam. But the campaign’s promotional materials fall short of actually promoting or scripting rudeness. So, I thought I'd do it for them:

“The next time you’re contacted by a telemarketer, just say “!!#$%!!#!!”

I hope I haven’t offended.

For more on mass marketing fraud, see Mass Marketing Fraud.

Fighting Back Against Financial Crime

Sometimes it seems like we're fighting a losing battle against increasingly sophisticated fraud perps. But there have been some inroads, and I thought it was time for some good news.

My hometown paper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, recently reported on a lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson against the giant international life insurance company Allianz for pressuring seniors into buying deferred annuities. Although good for some people, deferred annuities are bad for seniors who can't afford to have their money tied up or who are likely to die before the maturity date. In October, Allianz and the state settled, allowing more than 7,000 Minnesotans to get their money back for annuities they'd purchased, plus interest in some cases. Swanson has also filed a lawsuit against American Family Legal Plan and Heritage Marketing and Insurance Services for selling elderly people living trusts and annuities that don't make financial sense. According to Swanson, "They scare the begeezers out of senior citizens" by suggesting they won't be able to pass their savings on to relatives without giant penalties unless they invest their money in certain ways. Heritage agents are also trained to discourage elderly prospective customers from consulting with their children or financial advisers about the policies they're considering. For more, see Watchdog.

At the national level:

In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a report on "free lunch" investment seminars for seniors based on a year-long study it conducted in collaboration with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and state securities regulators. Among the key findings was that 100% of the "seminars" reviewed were actually sales presentations, despite the fact that many were advertised as educational workshops or that participants had been assured that nothing would be sold. In fact, attendees were encouraged to open new accounts and buy investment products, if not at the seminars themselves, then during follow-up contacts. For more, see SEC.

And recently, the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) joined forces with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) and the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER) to create a new coalition, CEASE, to address annuity fraud, trust mills, and other forms of financial abuse (CEASE is a rough acronym for Coalition to End Elder Financial Abuse). CANHR has been sponsoring groundbreaking consumer protection legislation for years, and WISER develops information on financial issues. In recent testimony before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, CANHR attorney Prescott Cole cited a 92-year-old client who was talked into purchasing a $650,000 annuity that doesn’t mature until the year 2063.

Beginning on November 1, the Experian credit bureau will join with Trans Union in offering free credit freezes to victims of identity theft. For other customers, it will cost $10 to implement the freezes and $10 to temporarily or permanently remove them, unless state law mandates otherwise. The service is available to consumers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia

Last month, CBC produced an excellent program on Canadian scams against elders:

In Canadian Senior Scams, reporter Armen Keteyian takes viewers inside a Montreal "boiler room" to show how con artists operate. He also interviews Yve LeBlanc of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Doug Shadel who runs a call center in Seattle that warns seniors they've been target, and Zack, a working con artist.

The follow-up segment, "On the Sucker List," focuses on how scammers get hold of elders' names in the first place. In it, Zack assures us that those who sell lists with names like "Elderly Opportunity Seekers" and "Suffering Seniors" know exactly what they're being used for (for more on "information trafficking," see Predators and Politics). Also featured is U.S. Postal Inspector Timothy Mahoney who tracks down suppliers of "leads."

And finally, last month I updated my Web site to include a fact sheet on "mass marketing fraud," a term used to describe the various techniques that perpetrators use to target and defraud people using the phone, Internet, and mail. See Mass Marketing Fraud.

Saying Goodbye to an Elder Champion

When Bruce Coleman retires from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the end of the month, it will be a tremendous loss for American elders and their advocates. As coordinator of “Project Emptor,” a position he’s held since 2004, Bruce has helped countless victims and “would be” victims of telemarketing fraud. Project Emptor, as in caveat emptor, Latin for "buyer beware," intercepts packages and mail that contain “bait letters” from telemarketers and checks or money orders from victims. It’s not the first time Bruce has retired. He left the RCMP in 2000 after 27½ years and returned to the Commercial Crime unit after a short stint at Workers’ Compensation.

In the last two years, he and his colleagues have intercepted in excess of $2 million: 80% of the victims are American, and the rest are from the UK. That’s just a fraction of the money crossing the border though—about half of one percent is Bruce’s guess.

He has some interesting observations about victims and abusers:

“Victims tend to be elders facing the onslaught of old age and possibly, early stage dementias. I’m not an expert, but you can tell from talking to them that they’ve lost the ability to rationalize or make good decisions based on the facts before them. Most can’t assess risk. Even after getting checks returned with warnings, some victims continue to send money, partly because they’ve previously invested so heavily in the scam.”

“We had one case involving a woman who’s a multimillionaire, whose daughter obtained guardianship and used it to protect the older woman’s money. But now the mother is “smurfing,” money laundering, for the bad guys. She accepts money from other old people, deposits it into a bank account or buys bank drafts in amounts under $10,000 to avoid the reporting threshold, and sends them to Canada.”

“When I ask some elderly victims ‘Are you going to remember that we talked?’ a lot of them say ‘no.’ So I tell them to write notes to themselves that say, “No more money to Canada” and put them next to their phones along with my card.”

When it’s clear that an elder is on a downward spiral, he tries to talk them into calling their families, or calls himself. “These families aren’t dealing proactively with their parents’ aging. Often, they’re not aware of what mum or dad are doing or that they’re having problems. They haven’t arranged for co-signatories on bank accounts, powers of attorney, home care and social visits. Many, many seniors are very lonely, and the criminals prey on them."

“The perpetrators are ruthless. We can’t say how much of this activity is related to terrorism, but there are certainly links to organized crime. Most of the perpetrators are involved in cells and are highly organized with hierarchical organizational structures. They use drug addicts as runners. People don’t realize that once victims give up money transfer control or reference numbers from Western Union or MoneyGram purchases or wire transfers, the cash can be picked up anywhere in the world."

With hundreds of cases, Bruce has to get in and out fast, which is why he tries to hand off cases to American law enforcement and social services for follow up. “Reporting to local police is like confession or a reality check. It helps victims come to grips with the devastation.” He has harsh words for social service providers who refuse to get involved. ”If you get a referral from someone who’s lost thousands of dollars or is at risk, don’t argue that the person doesn’t meet your criteria or mandate. Step up! At least call and offer help. Leave a phone number.”

On his good guy list are the Canada Border Services (customs), courier companies and retail mail outlets, which have provided excellent cooperation to the RCMP and are largely responsible for identifying victims.

In spite of the fact that co-workers call him Robin Hood and American colleagues refer to him as Uncle Bruce, he remains modest. “I’m the conduit of others' good work.” He admits though that since starting the program, he’s never received so many thank-you cards.

Will he miss the work? “No,” he says. After 30 plus years in law enforcement, he’s ready for a break and isn’t considering a third career. He will miss the elders he’s met though, who include schoolteachers, people in the armaments industry and NASA, dentists, doctors, rocket engineers, and World War II vets.

We will miss him.

Long Distance Undue Influence

Last week, San Diego prosecutor Paul Greenwood posted a message to NCEA’s list serve about an “articulate, coherent and charming” elderly woman who’d sent over $50,000 to telemarketers in Canada despite being warned repeatedly that they were crooks. She described feeling “hypnotized.”

It reminded me of when Dennis Morris, a San Francisco prosecutor, came to a meeting of our multidisciplinary team more than a decade ago and asked if anyone knew of an expert in brainwashing. He was working on a case involving a wealthy elderly woman who’d married her 40-something accountant. The justice of the peace who performed the ceremony insisted that the elderly bride knew what she was doing but Morris knew things weren't right. We thought it was a strange request—nobody was talking about undue influence in relation to elder abuse back then. But someone suggested Margaret Singer, an expert on cults, brainwashing, and persuasion. Morris contacted Singer, who subsequently testified before a grand jury, describing the classic forms of social persuasion that the younger man had used. He was convicted in what became a landmark case, and Singer went on to write and lecture extensively about undue influence in elder abuse. The topic struck a chord because it offered an answer to a fundamental question in elder abuse: Why do victims do what they do? And, perhaps more disturbing,why don't they do what we think they should?

In the early days, we chalked it up to “resistance” or reminded ourselves of clients’ rights to act freely. But over the years, we’ve gained greater insight into the psychology of abuse and victimization. Major milestones include breakthroughs in our understanding of the intricacies of mental capacity, including the subtle and elusive “executive function.” Domestic violence theory and practice helped us understand power and control and the “help-seeking process.”

Paul’s case, I believe, involves “long distance undue influence,” which has been an interest of mine ever since Debbie Deem, a Victim Specialist with the FBI, convinced me it should be. Debbie has a burgeoning caseload of what she refers to as “chronic victims” who repeatedly send money to predators, most of whom operate outside the U.S.,despite warnings from law enforcement, families, banks and social service agencies. Some of her cases are wrenching. One involved an elderly victim who had a check intercepted and sent back to her by a wonderful program involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and U.S. law enforcement in Canada. No sooner did she get her money back than the scammer called and convinced her to re-send the check–inside a stuffed animal.

Debbie and I have been working together to try to get APS, legal assitance, elder abuse and aging network professionals involved. So far, we haven’t had much luck. It’s not surprising. These cases are daunting, and investigating them ideally involves sting operations, taping conversations, surveillance, international task forces, and other strategies that are well beyond the scope of APS or legal aid. Some in our field don’t consider these cases elder abuse because they don’t fit the classic profile: perps aren’t family members or others in positions of trust or confidence. But a closer look reveals that these guys are hardly strangers. Many call their victims daily, send birthday cards and tell them fake sob stories. To my mind, the only difference between these long distance predators and the sweetheart scammers who befriend elders in supermarket parking lots is that they’re smarter and less likely to get caught. Clearly, investigating these cases is best left to law enforcement, but many victims are desperately in need of legal and protective services including cognitive assessments, money management, advocacy to mitigate the harm, assistance with creditors, housing, identity theft interventions, and lots and lots of support to break their ties to abuser.

A recent San Francisco case shows what can be done. Attorney Nancy Rasch was able to get a conservatorship on an elderly victim who’d lost thousands of dollars in a Canadian lottery by showing that the client had been unduly influenced. Nancy, who has been doing groundbreaking work in elder abuse since the early 80s and has handled hundreds of conservatorship cases, shared Paul’s bewilderment about her client, who was paying her bills and managing her personal affairs just fine. It was clear that the conservatorship prevented further losses as the older woman continued to call Nancy asking her to release her funds because she was convinced that if she made one final payment, she’d get the millions she’d been promised.

Paul’s post has already generated a flurry of responses. One was from psychologist Gary Freedman-Harvey, who pointed out that “vascular dementia” impairs recall and makes it possible for others to “create” memories. Other researchers, including Jacoby, Bishara, Hessels, & Toth (2005) have also suggested a link between memory deficit and vulnerability to scams. Some of the best work in this area that I’ve found is being done by Doug Shadel and Anthony Pratkanis (http://www.aarp.org/states/wa/ and http://www.apa.org/science/psa/pratkanis.html). In the quest to understand why clients do what they do, long distance undue influence is clearly the latest challenge.